Wednesday, July 8, 2015

A Tampa woman and her husband have been sentenced to federal prison for their part in identity theft tax fraud scheme.

Using stolen identities, many from hospitals and ambulance services, they conspired with others from 2011 to 2013 to file false tax returns worth about $5 million in refunds and to obtain more than 300 prepaid debit cards.

"Many of the 7,000 names were stolen from health facilities." - Court documents

Unfortunately, as is often the case, the identity thefts were discovered by law enforcement rather than tho organization holding the personal identifying information (PII). It is also unclear why the thefts went on for two years. Organizations seeking to proactively detect identity thefts and privacy data breaches can utilize low-cost on-demand SaaS analytics services.